Montesquieu formed the habit when thinking alone of leaning back in his
chair before the hearth and resting his feet against one of the jambs of
the chimney-piece. The stone was much worn away by his feet; but the
marks would pass unobserved if the knowledge of their cause had not been
preserved in the family. A bust of Montesquieu made in his life-time shows
him with closely-cropped hair, and without a wig. It is a remarkably
Caesar-like head, every feature indicating the decision and positivism of
the Roman character--such a one, indeed, as ideally became the author of
the 'Considerations.' But how the face is altered when we look at it in
another portrait--a painted one, representing the writer in a great wig as
President of the Parliament of Guyenne! A head becomes another head if the
coiffure be but changed.
A little room adjoining this one was where Montesquieu's secretary worked.
He was the drudge of a literary man, who was probably not exempt from the
constitutional irritability of those who carry a whirling grindstone within
their brains for the sharpening and polishing of thought. The unremembered
scribe may have done good service to literature while undergoing his
purgatory in this world.
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